Hey there! I hope you had a wonderful and restful holiday. My family traveled up to Sea Ranch, ten miles of coastal meadow at the Sonoma and Mendocino county line. We ran, hiked, read books, got mild cases of Covid, and lovingly sniffled around each other in quiet isolation for a couple weeks. It was great!
As we jump into the new year, here’s a look back at a few favorites from 2023, including some non-sporty picks not yet mentioned in this newsletter.
Favs of the year
Books
Nonfiction
Floating Coast. I finally read my grad-school colleague Bathsheba Demuth’s 2019 environmental history of American and Soviet interventions in the Bering Strait. A beautiful and painstakingly researched book, passages describing the material lives of whales, walruses, and caribou are nothing short of astounding.
I also loved On Trails by Robert Moor, as discussed in this post. And every East Bay denizen should check out Andrew Alden’s Deep Oakland.
Inspired by Oppenheimer, I finished Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s magisterial American Prometheus, which prompted many thoughts on yoking science and ideas in service to power.
Fiction
A western theme this year. I read Cormac McCarthy’s harrowing Blood Meridian for the first time and was blown away like everyone else who reads it. A lighter frontier adventure was Charles Portis’s True Grit—a tweeful delight.
Television
Fleishman Is in Trouble. This well-crafted adaption made me reconsider my preconceived notions of motherhood and middle age.
Scavengers Reign. Beautiful, haunting, and strangely calming animated series about the crew of a damaged space freighter marooned on dangerous planet.
Physical: 100. One of several Korean reality-tv shows on Netflix, but a series that Breakfast Club subscribers might enjoy. I certainly did, hooting encouragement from the very first hang challenge.
Podcasts
The Big Dig. Why can’t America build big any more? The Big Dig explores why in a case study about the infamous Boston infrastructure project.
Search Engine. PJ Vogt of the late Reply All had a great start with his new project’s first season. The opening episode about whether airline coffee is safe to drink was my favorite.
Matter of Opinion. I love a good debate show, especially one with the pleasantly contrarian conservative Ross Douthat. A favorite listen from this NY Times Opinion pod was a conversation about what a healthy masculinity might look like in the 21st-century.
Essays
“Why Were Two Female Running Champions Killed in Kenya?” New Yorker investigation into Agnes Tirop’s murder, highlighting violent interactions between women pro running and Kenyan patriarchy.
“Chelsea Sodaro Conquered Kona. Then the Real Struggles Returned.” NY Times profile of Ironman World Champ Chelsea Sodaro as she worked through postpartum depression and OCD.
“When Trucks Fly.” Vault into the world of monster trucks with this piece from the New Yorker.
“The Brutal Wonders of a Late Summer Run”. Reflections on summer running interspersed with thoughts about the writer George Sheehan.
“America Inside Out.” James Parker’s roadtrip through his adopted country includes a lovely description of NASCAR.
Tweets of the week
Weekly run
Breakfast Club’s weekly Thursday 8-mile run:
When and Where: 6:30am at Lake Temescal in Oakland, CA
Pace: ~7:00 to 7:40 pace with some hills
For updates, email Katie Klymko at katieklymko at gmail.com to join Breakfast Club’s WhatsApp. More info
For more local events, join our Strava club, East Bay Strava Runners
Parting thought
“I believe that through discipline, though not through discipline alone, we can achieve serenity and a certain small, but precious freedom from the accidents of incarnation . . . Only through discipline is it possible to see the world without the gross distortion of personal desire, and in seeing it so, accept more easily our earthly privation and its earthly horror.”
-J. Robert Oppenheimer
That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading. Breakfast Club is written by Sam Robinson. You can follow me on Notes, Strava, and what’s left of Twitter.
...great recs bruther...wishing you a radical 2024!...